Friday, March 10, 2006

Just recently we had an intradepartmental meeting (I’ve probably spent more time in these than actually in my own office); the impetus was to generate ideas on how to boost employee morale. As precedent in the seventy years or so that the Academy has been in existence, turnover has not been very high. People tend to start and then stay for 25+ years. However, over the course of the last three years or so, there have been noticeably shorter employment periods and a lot of new faces around here (one being mine of course). Any HR dept. will advocate on the financial basis for employee retainment, and there was much worry. Coincident, or maybe not so coincident were some other extenuating changes such as lengthening the work week from a previous 35 hours, eliminating casual Fridays, putting a cap of 4 weeks on vacation time accrued, losing the week of paid vacation at Christmas, and numerous other things.

However, that being said, when I was recruited, things such as tuition and fitness reimbursement, adequate vacation and sick time, flexible work scheduling, travel, robust holiday bonuses and autonomous work atmosphere were still major incentives, so I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything. Still, I think it is inherent in human nature that if something is taken away, we get defensive and angry.

So, in trying to alleviate the problem, although in just light it’s like putting a bandage to stop a leak in a cruise boat, we were allowed a “casual day” today. Here I am sitting in jeans, feeling vaguely uncomfortable being comfortable in non-high heeled shoes and jeans. But then again, it’s one less suit set I have to send out to the dry cleaners and I didn’t have to iron any blouses last night. Maybe there’s something to losing casual Fridays after all…

posted by Sheila @ 3/10/2006 10:54:00 AM

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